QHW, Day 19: Alchemy

Homunculi are what you get when you plant a kidney stone.

Different kinds of bodily stones give birth to different kinds of homunculi. It's a trivial matter to harvest kidney stones, gallstones and even enteroliths. Things get more difficult when alchemists start to crave more rare homunculi.

It is said that unscrupulous alchemists sometimes keep captives fed with special diets rich in metals, minerals or even worse stuff in order to grow stones otherwise nigh impossible to find. Sialoliths, tonsilloliths, phleboliths. But the truth is, an alchemist's holy grail is no stone. Not even the Philosopher's Stone, which must be grown within the brain of a powerful magic-user. That's just a plaything.

Transmogrification, mutations, chimerae or artificial life - none of this will satisfy a master alchemist.

What they're really after are teratomas, tumours which arise from germinal cells and can therefore contain and create all types of tissue. Finding one is the first step in creating true, original life. Of course, it's not an easy task to keep such a wellspring of life-force in check.

Yet there is one experiment that even the most depraved alchemical tomes will just warn you to never attempt. What happens when you plant a lithopedion?